With Sugarland on hiatus, it would be understandable if Kristian Bush shied away from mentioning the band or its music while promoting his solo project. But during a recent stop in Buffalo, N.Y., he didn't seem to be too worried about that -- although he thought the crowd might be.

"You guys are terribly nervous if you're a big fan of Sugarland," Bush said shortly after taking the stage. "You have no idea what I sound like when I sing. And it's super fun ... I'm here to play you a bunch of songs, and you're not going to know any of them."

And while he played a handful of new tunes, Bush tossed in a couple of familiar ones, but with a twist.

"I will play you one song you know, but I'm going to play it in a way you don't know it," he said before launching into an acoustic rendition of 'Baby Girl,' replacing Jennifer Nettles' vocals with his own. "Now I want you to know, when I was writing this, we didn't even really have a band, and so I made up the ending to see if it was, like, a wish of what I wanted to have happen."

Bush, who is preparing a solo album, was eager to discuss his songwriting experience, noting that when he writes, he has no idea which tunes will become hits.

"When you write a hit song, it's not a hit song when you write it. It's just a song. And it's not even a hit song when you record it, or even when they start playing it on the radio, it's still not a hit," he tells The Boot. "Like, two years later, they call you, and they're like, 'Hey, Kristian, that was totally a hit.' And I'm like, 'What did I eat that day?!'"

The 'Love or Money' singer also noted that his new album will include his "very first drinking song," 'On Top of My Flip Flops.'

"I'm very excited about it. I also think that maybe I ought to have some of my country music awards revoked because it took me this long to write a drinking song," Bush says. "But, better late than never -- you always say that at a bar about drinking."

Take a listen to the song in the video below. WYRK.com has more video of Bush's performance, including other solo material and a tune he made up that evening about the venue.